Analyst says three fourths of cost increases come from the way the U.S. government estimates costs

The cost of F-35 Lightning II fighter program continues spiral ever upwards. The United States is now projecting that the total cost to develop, operate, and purchase the Lockheed Martin F-35 will total $1.45 trillion over the next 50 years. Reuters notes the figures come from a Pentagon report that it obtained.

The $1.45 trillion estimate is up from the roughly $1 trillion estimate the government used a year ago. The new estimate does include inflation expected over the next 50 years. Military officials are fast point out that this is the first military program to be calculated over so many years and that expected inflation accounts for more than a third of the projected operating costs for the F-35 over the next half-century. The actual cost could be significantly less, or if inflation hits hard the program could cost more.

The new estimates also include the Pentagon's plan to postpone orders for 179 F-35 fighters by five years. In the short term that move will save $15.1 billion through 2017, but it also pushes the purchase further out when inflation will mean the aircraft will cost more.

Other than saving money, military officials and program managers hope that the five-year delay will mean problems found in testing can be worked out before aircraft are produced in high numbers. The total Pentagon plan still has the originally expected 2,443 fighters being purchased. However, senior military officials have already warned that additional technical problems or cost increases in the F-35 program could change the number of aircraft government purchases.

The estimated cost per F-35 is $135 million for the airframe, and an additional $22 million for the Pratt & Whitney engine (this includes R&D and inflation).

Program managers for the F-35 argue that much of the reason for cost inflation and price overruns on the project continues to be due to the U.S. government changing how it estimates costs. The government has also begun splitting up the cost of the airframe and engine making direct comparisons to previous aircraft impossible.

Defense analyst Loren Thompson says that three fourths of the cost increases the F-35 program has encountered are directly linked to changes in the scope of the program and the way the government estimates costs. Thompson cites the fact the Pentagon initially planned the station the F-35 at 33 bases and then later change the number 49 bases. The government also originally calculated operating costs over 30 years and then chose to calculate them over 50 years. Costs could increase even more if partner nations cut orders for the F-35.

"The program costs appear to be rising much faster than they actually are because the government keeps changing how it calculates things," Thompson said.

quote: The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, meant to replace nearly every tactical warplane in the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, was already expected to cost $1 trillion dollars for development, production and maintenance over the next 50 years. Now that cost is expected to grow, owing to 13 different design flaws uncovered in the last two months by a hush-hush panel of five Pentagon experts. It could cost up to a billion dollars to fix the flaws on copies of the jet already in production, to say nothing of those yet to come.

So... big faults = big costs. Why the surprise when an investigation into costs subsequent to the QLR find that costs have increased significantly?

There is no way to know how long an airframe will be in service. It depends on unknown future needs, budgets, technology, and of course how well the airframe holds together. The designers of the C130 and B52 would never have guessed that their designs would be in service for so long.

send in the stealth to neutralize suface to air.send in the F22's in the one in a million chance we are fighting someone with an airforce.then send in the B-52's to flatten everything we want gone.and finally keep a cap of drones and warthogs for ground support.

I don't want to defend the F35 program, which sounds like another Pentagon clusterf* that took on a life of its own and cannot be killed despite no longer serving the functions it was envisioned for in the first place. But, there's an old saying in the military: "You have to be prepared to fight the next war, not the last one." "Fighting camel people" was the last war. 50 years is a long time. The next war could be with an advanced superpower again, like China or a resurgent Russia or something. If you don't keep the defense industry busy doing *something* during that time, the expertise and technological base needed to build things like this in the future will erode. It's not an easy problem to solve, at least not cheaply.

Then again looking at the way our industrial base is crumbling anyway, it's hard to imagine the US being in any kind of financial condition to deter another emerging superpower like China in 30-50 years.